Iran set UAE friendly for April

PFDC – DUBAI, Iran’s national team will face the UAE in a friendly match in Dubai on April 17.

The match will be held outside the FIFA calendar, as the next official FIFA matchdays in June are already occupied by World Cup qualifiers.

Therefore, none of the foreign based players, apart from the ones playing in the UAE, will be able to join the national team.

Additionally, due to Asian Champions League commitments of Sepahan, Esteghlal and Persepolis, none of the three clubs’ players will be availble.

Team Melli also are in negotiations to play Japan in a friendly match in the middle of May.

Japan’s demand would be that the game must take place at the location of their training camp, which will be held somewhere in Europe.

“The Iranian officials and their Japanese counterparts have reached a verbal agreement but the Japanese have not officially announced their readiness,” Omid Jamali director of the International Relations Committee of Iran’s football federation, was quoted by ‘Tehran Times’.

“Iran wanted to play Japan at the Azadi Stadium in Tehran,” Jalali added.

Again, many players would be unavailable at that point of time due to club duties in foreign leagues and Asian Champions League.

An offer to play the Nigerian national team, however, without any of their foreign based players, in Dubai in April was meanwhile rejected.